There are several storage solutions for a KVM/QEMU virtual machine.
Use a raw image container file
This is pretty easy to accomplish with a reasonable performance results.
In order to use the maximum amount of an 120GB SSD. I created a raw image file (.img) on it, via:fallocate -l 111G /media/vm/win10.img
Add the image container as a storage device in virt-manager. I use
- Source path:
/media/vm/win10.img - Device Type: SATA Disk
- Disk bus: VirtIO
In order to access the storage space within Windows, for example during the OS installation, use the VirtIO windows drivers (viostor\w10\amd64\viostor.inf).
Pass an entire storage device to a virtual machine
In case you want to pass through a storage device as a whole, instead of using an image container file. You have to identify the correct drive first.
Usels -l /dev/disk/by-id and lsblk to get the drive information.
Edit your virtual machines’ config via virsh edit <vm-name> and add the following block:
<disk type='block' device='disk'>
<driver name='qemu' type='raw' cache='none' io='native' discard='unmap'/>
<source dev='/dev/nvme0n1'/>
<target dev='sdb' bus='sata'/>
<boot order='1'/>
<address type='drive' controller='0' bus='0' target='0' unit='1'/>
</disk> Into the <devices> section (one line after </emulator> should be fitting).
Where <source dev='/dev/nvme0n1'/> should match your device or partition name.
When you run in problems on an Ubuntu system, these might be caused by Apparmor.
Edit the /etc/apparmor.d/abstractions/libvirt-qemu file and add your passed through device like this:
/dev/nvme0n1 rw,
save and exit and run
service apparmor restart
Afterwards.
Pass an entire SATA controller to a virtual machine
This is only possible if you have a convenient IOMMU group for the use case.
Proceed as one would do with regular PCI-Passthrough.
Sources:
heiko-sieger.info: Really comprehensive guide (see part 8)
https://level1techs.com/article/ryzen-gpu-passthrough-setup-guide-fedora-26-windows-gaming-linux
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[…] this guide I use a raw image container, see the storage post for further […]
Kees
pass entire device to VM
in case a complete harddrive is passed to the VM, find out the correct device-id.
use
ls -l /dev/disk/by-id
lsblk
to get the id by with the mount points
add
Where should I add? What file?
Little
sorry for maybe the dump question but what does this means?:
In your example you used the /dev/nvme0n1. In my case I want to use nvme1n1, would this line still be the same.
sorry for the poor choice of my word. I’m not a native speaker :_/
Little
oh! missed it! Of course thank you for your awesome guide!!! Really neat work!